Murder charge upheld against 19-year-old in Nederland stabbing death

By Mitchell Byars, Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
08/15/2013 05:38:33 PM MDT

Spencer Crawford

A Boulder County judge today upheld the murder charge filed against Spencer Crawford, the 19-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing another teen on a camping trip near Nederland in June, according to court officials.

The second-degree murder charge -- a Class 2 felony -- was bound over to Boulder District Court following a preliminary hearing, and Crawford is now scheduled for an arraignment on Nov. 1.

Crawford, of Boulder, was arrested June 19 on suspicion of killing Angus Gaudin, 17, also of Boulder, while the two were camping with a group of friends.

According to court documents, deputies were called to the campsite around 3 a.m. on a report of a stabbing. There, they discovered a group of 11 people who were friends from New Vista High School who had camped in the area overnight.

Gaudin was found by deputies with a stab wound to his chest and was pronounced dead at the scene. Two people kneeling over him told the deputies Crawford had stabbed him, according to investigators.

According to court records, Crawford told paramedics he and Gaudin had taken LSD and mushrooms, and drank "moonshine." Crawford told officials that after they took the drugs, Gaudin asked him to hide a machete from him because Gaudin said he did not trust himself and did not want to hurt anyone.

Crawford told deputies he hid the machete in a tree about a half-mile from the campsite before returning, but that he continued to obsess over why Gaudin would ask him to hide the machete and wanted to talk to him about it. He told deputies that he "jumped the gun," and pulled a knife out of a sheath on his belt and stabbed Gaudin, according to court documents.

According to the report, Crawford repeatedly took responsibility for the stabbing and said the victim did nothing. Nowhere in the report do any other witnesses refer to a machete, and the report does not mention investigators finding a machete.

Crawford graduated from New Vista in 2012. Gaudin was a student at New Vista before he transferred to a private school in 2012.